WOODBURY, N.Y.— PAC Engineering, a full-service systems design and integration firm in San Diego, has installed three Hitachi DK-Z50 multi-format HDTV box cameras at a news production studio built for Union-Tribune San Diego.

The studio enabled the publishing company to expand to cable television, online, mobile and social media outlets. San Diego broadcast news channel U-T TV is carried by Cox Communications and AT&T U-verse and streamed online. The channel began by producing three to four hours of live newscasts per day, it soon expanded to 12 hours of news and other local programing during the day, followed by 12 hours of overnight replays.

“We chose these cameras for U-T San Diego because their attractive price-point worked well with our tight budget and they produced a beautiful HD picture from a very small, unobtrusive studio footprint,” said Craig Claytor, who co-owns PAC Engineering with his partner Gail Pineda. “We knew that the DK-Z50’s in combination with the Fujinon lenses would work well with the CamBot robotics system.”

While PAC Engineering was hired by U-T San Diego in late March 2012, the broadcast studio needed to go live by June because advertisers were already scheduled, and after the NAB Show, Hitachi Sales Representative David Morris moved to deliver three DK-Z50 HD box cameras in advance of the channel launch. Art Kubota, Hitachi’s Western sales regional engineer also provided training and technical support.

“The camera’s IT-friendly TCP/IP interface enabled us to use an RJ45 connector and Cat 6 wiring, which were significantly less expensive than the triax cabling and components required by full-sized studio cameras,” said Pineda.

Two of the DK-Z50’s are situated on Ross Video’s CamBot Series 500 pedestals, which provide pan and tilt alongside robotic camera controls, and the other resides on a CamBot 700 series pedestal, which performs pan/tilt plus elevation. The cameras are set-up and shaded via Ethernet using the Hitachi SU-1000 Master Setup control panel.

U-T TV’s live, multi-camera newscasts are switched using a Ross Vision production switcher, which can be driven by a Ross OverDrive automated production control system. The studio also uses Ross Xpressions for graphics, a Yamaha DM2000 audio mixer, EditShare storage and asset management and Ross Inception for social media production.